Poem By Chukwuemeka Akpe. -Yet, More Than A Brother Poem by Oluseyi Akinbami

Moods oscillate in cadences of peaks and valleys
Music to fractious emotions on greasy dance floors
Mistimed cues of flares smouldering relationships

Angst of redundancy seethes from within as lava
Anger is camouflaged with the cloak of reticence
Ardour suffocated with the noose of indifference

Cataracts of devotion flows from the heart’s crevices
Compassion brightens the visage with deep dimples
Caressing arduous tasks to lighten others’ burdens

Attrition grates the soul baring the mind’s low estate
Audacious mien casts the mould of a mean persona
Attracting pestering quizzes on casual promenades

Undeterred optimism as binoculars peers into a future
Unresting feet daily eat up distance seeking solitude
Uncharted landscapes nuded and printed with flourish

Life’s harsh lessons came bound in teeming volumes
Lecturers of sundry genre pierce the ears from lecterns
Long lonely nights pass away brooding tough theories

Attention always spurned with multitude of entreaties
Attires are the shields of invincibility from prying eyes
Amazement and wonder to acquaintances and friends

Years of toiling under hard-nosed instructors for a scroll
Yielded bitter results hunting for game to stuff the table
Yo-yo appointments as boulders crushing elevated hopes

Obstinate phase of season invited foes within and without
Ostracism dug wells of acrimony pulled by cord of hatred
Outcast engraved on the forehead with pens of odious ink

Longings stir for kindred spirits to occupy the soul’s void
Letters are dispatched far and wide on wings of honesty
Letting in respondents through the window of brotherhood

Unbridled tongue lashes out blindly to sting innocent flesh
Untainted heart in atonement pours out songs of lamentation
Unseen are the weals of self-flagellation trenched in the heart

Sequestered recompense curdled milk of unity with affront
Stories unfurl the firmly swathed bard with mystical verses
Satires the canvasses littered with brush strokes of humour

Enigma garbs the character in fineries not of gold but awe
Etchings of astonishment imprinted boldly on dull apparel
Enamoured of any able to break into the mind’s penitentiary

Yearnings of affection resonate from the depth of the soul
Yearlings and all invited to a banquet of friendship and love
Yesterday’s delinquencies wiped with the duster of repentance

Insatiable quest for erudition compels him to drink in cupfuls
Imbibing in long drags the wisdom poured out on parchments
Infused parched organs energized to purge constipated passions


Apparitions of buried memories exhumed with rash eulogies
Arouse dried up tears that ever fail to cleanse the robe of guilt
Arraigning again before the partial jury of tormenting thoughts

Kaleidoscopic filial relationships hypnotize the mind to dumbness
Kamikaze images on ethereal screen longingly beckoning for a role
Kedging the ship of life’s voyage with sorrowful tugs to damnation

Intentions misjudged rivet spiteful labels reflected by wicked eyes
Impaling arrows of hate perforate the spirit to seep out its essence
Invitation to invasion by dark fiends to fetter the mind’s fragile walls

Neglected on shore as brothers and sisters sail out with patron’s hearse
Neighbours cut out their flesh of revenge measuring with unjust scales
Neutral judges acquiesce with stolid silence as the gavel of authority

Black skin refuses to be cajoled by those richly perfumed emollients
Bronzing came by nature’s quirk and glistening the sweat of its kiln
Brawn cultivated in the gymnasium of hard labour threads the body

Anodynes are moments of laughter with friends that rob sorrow of joy
Allayed fears sucked into the chasm of oblivion by a vortex of pleasure
Annoyance a rare display on a platform erected on the base of candour

Mistakes of the past hurled as fiery pebbles of insult across continents
Mark with contorting bruises turning the face into an offensive mask
Maturity date for restoration of loaned out bond suspended on a caveat

Intermittent pulses race to recesses of cranial bank to withdraw memories
Intractable dramas staged to the roars of disgust banished with entreaties
Internalized are kernels of the fruit of life eaten hurriedly in ignorance

Dedicated to Macaulay Oluseyi Akinbami, a brother who never ceases to encourage me to dig deeper into myself and bring out gold.

Chukuemeka Akpe